Become as a child

J.M. Barrie’s most renowned work, Peter Pan, begins with the statement, “All children, except one, grow up.” The “one,” of course, refers to the story's protagonist, Peter Pan, a character who has long captivated readers as the boy who never grew up. The story of Peter Pan was first introduced to me a century after its publication, when I received a Peter Pan storybook, complete with a read-along CD for my birthday. I instantly fell in love with the story, playing the CD in the car, dressing up as various characters for Halloween, and watching the movie over and over again. I wanted to be just like Peter Pan. I wanted to go on adventures, and I wanted to fly, but most importantly, I wanted to never grow up. 

The first time I remember wishing never to grow up was when, at seven years old, I was about to be baptized. In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, children are not baptized until they reach eight years old, the age at which they believe people can be held accountable for their sins. This conversely means that children who die before the age of eight immediately go to heaven. The idea of turning eight and giving up my guaranteed spot in heaven scared me, and I was distressed over all the sins I was sure to commit afterward. Likewise, as I was thrust into the interview process and preparation for my baptism, I squirmed as I had to testify to religious leaders, family, and other members. Each time they would congratulate me on my “choice” to be baptized. In reality, the choice I was making was to not cause a fuss. As much as I knew that I could not delay my eighth birthday, I also felt that abstaining from baptism wasn’t an option. I was distraught as I struggled to receive confirmation of the church and grappled with losing my perfect self and my spot in heaven. I spent countless nights leading up to my baptism praying and wishing for an escape or a sign. For a time that was supposed to be marked by my faith and my commitment to God, I instead spent every night leading up to my baptism feeling trapped and alone, crying on my floor. 

The anxiety I felt over growing up only increased as I entered my tween years. My maturation was becoming obvious, and I continuously felt my hold on childhood and perfection slipping further and further from my grasp. It seemed that this time, the adults in my life agreed with me. Whether jokingly or seriously, they began to warn me about the evils of teenagers. They were moody and irrational. Plagued by peer pressure and sin. Each passing year forecasted doom. I understood I was only a few short years away from laziness, selfishness, combativeness, promiscuity, and all sorts of depravity. This time, my fears motivated me not merely to wish never to grow up, but to actively try to stay a child as long as I could. I scorned teenage activities that I witnessed the adults in my life disparage. I didn’t care about how I looked! (I did.) I hated boys! (I didn't). I woke up early every day of a family reunion after I overheard relatives complaining about my teenage cousin sleeping in. I tried my best to be obedient, beyond the accusation of teenage defiance and hormones that my parents were quick to attribute any bad behavior to.

However, once again, I was fighting a losing battle. Tried as I might, I couldn’t seem to will myself out of becoming a teenager. It was impossible for me to be perfect. I watched the adults in my life bemoan my every misstep as a sign that I had finally grown up. My adolescent failures seemed to come right along with religious failures. I found it was harder to be the member people expected. I began receiving callings and responsibilities within the church. Yet the only voice that I felt was speaking to me was the one nagging at me about how everyone expected me to already have the answers. I was doing everything expected of me, but I was increasingly hysterical that I couldn’t feel God. 

I knew the battle to stay a child was over when my mom asked me for her daughter back. I had refused to participate in a girl's church camp dance due to my adolescent self-consciousness. My mother, who was attending the camp with me, pulled me aside to lecture me about not participating. She insisted that this was not like me, that I was her little girl who loved to dance, and that I should be setting a better example for everyone else. Why wouldn’t I dance? From then on, I knew I couldn’t deny my demotion. I was no longer everyone's perfect child. 

Everyone at church was always worried about the teenagers. By the time I had officially joined the ranks, there had started to be a clear divide between the good kids and the bad kids. The kids who had already started to “fall away,” and the ones the adults anxiously clung to. I could sense that there was no room for mistakes. I followed every official and unofficial rule as a “good kid,” and I remained hypervigilant to each way you could become a ‘bad kid.’

As the leader of the older girls, I spent hours consulting in and outside of church meetings about the bad kids. Sometimes all it took to get on the list was to skip activities or church. Sometimes it was a rumor. Sometimes it was a secret that the adults couldn’t tell you about. In my mind, these girls we talked about, who I often knew little about, became labeled by their faults. That girl almost got pregnant. That girl goes by a different name at school. That girl has a mom who is anti-Mormon. When I was released from the presidency, I began to wonder what consultations were happening about me and what labels I had.

Having grown up in the same church my whole life, and being a part of a very involved family, I felt continuously haunted by the ghost of my perfect seven-year-old self. I felt that to everyone, I was always falling short of who I had been. The verdict was that I was that girl to be worried about. By this time, I had begun to understand the atonement, but it still did not comfort me. In the meetings, there was no atonement mentioned, only the same constant vigilance and monitoring of people's actions. Besides, despite my numerous efforts, I had still failed to develop a testimony, and so I felt there was no way for me to fix things besides trying to minimize or conceal the mistakes I made. I was stuck. My failures kept me from being worthy, and I saw no other path to heaven when it seemed as if God and everyone else was shutting me out. 

It was around this time when I finally confessed to my parents that I didn’t think I believed in the church anymore, and I didn’t know if I had ever really believed. They were shocked. What did I mean I never believed? I was baptized, I spoke in the primary program, I led my young women's group, I was such a good kid! My mother looked at me indignantly with tears in her eyes and said this couldn’t be true. When I was a child, I had such a beautiful testimony! Didn’t I? 

A young child makes a great canvas for adults to paint their expectations on. We forget that the myth of never growing up is not only appealing to children but also to adults. In Peter Pan, while watching two-year-old Wendy, Mrs. Darling exclaims, “Oh why can’t you remain like this forever!” This prompts Wendy to realize that “two is the beginning of the end.” I had long felt the end coming for me. The end of my childhood, the end of my worthiness, the end of my compliance to a religion that I could not figure out, and the end of my search for perfection. My mother never realized my lifelong dread and instead remembers me as a child, her perfect angel. I'm forced to wonder whether I had stripped myself of my wings over the years as she believes, or if they were always an illusion. 

During one of my first weeks at BYU, my roommates were trying to decide whether to skip the second hour of church or not. My roommates each cast their votes and then turned to me. What did I think? I stared at them and blinked. In that moment, I had an amazing sense of relief as I realized that I was no longer bound to a past self from which every deviation was a sign of moral decline. Not only that, but after that week—as I began to meet more people at BYU who I could not divide into “good” and “bad” by their actions—my view of what church could be bega to expand. I started to utilize my new adult freedom to let go of the rigid and sometimes arbitrary rules I had held myself to for so long.

I realized that no adherence to people’s expectations had ever determined my spirituality. The shame that I had felt about my inevitable deviation from perfection was ridiculous. I could feel bad about skipping church in college and long for my high school self who attended mission prep every Sunday. But my high school self was ashamed that she wasn't her middle school self, who was such a faithful scripture reader. But my middle school self felt she was an absolute failure of a beehive president and longed for a time when she hadn't disappointed anyone. But before all of that, I was seven and asking God if I could die so I wouldn't turn eight and become imperfect. 

Now, I am perhaps further from perfect than I have ever been, but I don’t want to be a child anymore. Throughout my life, childhood and perfection had been synonymous in my head. These ideas were reinforced to me despite the fact that neither an eternal childhood nor perfection are meant to be our goals in this life. When J.M. Barrie was writing Peter Pan, he based the main character on his brother, who had died when he was very young. His brother was a boy who would never grow up. It is sad to realize that for some people, I will always be judged and compared to my childhood self who hadn’t yet utilized her agency. For a church that talks a lot about spiritual autonomy and growth, I fear that at times, we struggle to internalize what we preach. Children need to know that religious decisions are completely their own to make, and their choices do not determine our love for or acceptance of them. 

Likewise, culturally, within and outside of the church, fear of the developmental cognitive and physical changes of teenagers permeates too many of our messages to youth. This stands in stark contrast to prophets, who often speak glowingly of the unique strength of young adults. Our words and assumptions have power. When we allow youth and children to begin to make their own decisions, they may differ from our own. However, it is important to avoid assumptions, speculation, and judgment. Stop creating arbitrary metrics to determine someone's spirituality. I sometimes fear that we do more to push out those we deem to be struggling by labeling them and treating them as if they are already gone. Youth leaders should avoid gossip, even if it is out of concern for an individual's behavior. We need to accept that children will make mistakes, especially as they begin to use their agency. There are too many beautiful parts of the gospel that teach us about growth for us to be so fearful of the process. If we want children to fly, they will have to first fall. I am still growing spiritually and physically, and I now know that my mistakes are not a source of dread but a part of the process. I have not lost anything in the process, but have only gained more. All I can ask for from those around me now is some faith, some trust, and maybe a little bit of pixie dust.